


Mass Effect: Uncharted Stars

by pebbleys



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, idek what to tag this with?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-28
Updated: 2017-03-27
Packaged: 2018-10-11 21:53:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10475232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pebbleys/pseuds/pebbleys
Summary: Verthyr Acarius, former cabal military, now works a minimum wage job in the slum of the Citadel, repairing used ships. Her life is boring, unfair, and completely at rock bottom-it couldn't get much worse for her. At least, not until she receives a letter from an estranged and presumed dead relative. Is he who he says he is? Is Verthyr even still cut out for life on the run? Who can she truly trust?





	

**Author's Note:**

> @sarah stop making me look through my old shit

 

_Codex: Verthyr was born in the GS year 2163 to Heryn and Geriun Acarius, on the turian colony world Oma Ker. Beginning to display biotic potential at a very young age, she was drafted at 15 into the cabals on Palaven. She served for 6 years, deployed on reconnaissance and sabotage missions for the Hierarchy, and was being considered for a spectre position. Before that could happen, she was abruptly discharged in 2185 after 27 accounts of insubordination and 3 accounts of interpersonal conflict with crewmates, although the exact cause of her ejection is undisclosed. She lived in an apartment in the Zakera Ward for 4 months after her discharge. Her current whereabouts and activities are unknown._

_Cabal training includes: small arms, explosives, infiltration tactics, and biotic finesse._

_Physical description: 6'2", 197 lbs. White hide, black facial tattoo similar to Nihlus'._

_Notable kin: General Quincius Acarius_

_Threat level: Medium High_

 

Used ships. Her life was used ships.

Not that she minded used ships-- she loved them, in fact. Bonfor, her volus employer, was very gracious about the time she took to repair them. Verthyr loved her manager and loved her ships.

But ships got _boring_ after repairing twenty a day for seven days a week. Same fuses that burst, same tank leaks, same grease, same everything. Her life was simple and perfect and _boring._

Often, while she was underneath the belly of a frigate or speeder or shuttle, she would daydream about her time in the cabal.

Bonfor was closing up the shop for the day, leaving Verthyr to finish replacing the fuse in a shuttle light. It only took her another minute; fuses were easy compared to the fleets she’d infiltrated.

It wasn’t _fair._ Her life had been exciting, dangerous, and amazing. Never in the same place for more than a week, constantly on edge, fast-paced, adrenaline-rushed, and running, running, running.

Some others would welcome the chance to slow down. They’d kick back, relax, and find joy in the fact that they were replacing fuses instead of blowing up battleships.

Not Verthyr. She’d lived on the action, thrived on the whiplash of the battlefield, flourished under the stress of an infiltration mission. And now? Now she was replacing fuses in some back-alley junk shop.

She clocked out for the night, grabbed her bag, hung up her hat that read _Irune’s Finest,_ and began to head home.

Home was a simple one bed, one bath apartment in the Zakera Ward. It featured a squeaky shower, a simple twin-sized bed that Verthyr never slept on, ever, and a dingy mail terminal in the corner that only ever ringed when her bills were overdue.

Home sweet home.

Verthyr showered the day’s grease away and microwaved last night’s noodles.

Verthyr wasn’t ungrateful; quite the opposite. She was grateful for her run-down apartment and her boring job, because honestly she was lucky to have gotten a job and a roof at all. A cabal discharge with 3 accounts of interpersonal conflict and 27 insubordinations didn't look very good on a resume.

Bonfor was generous, however, saw that she was a decent mechanic, and hired her four months ago.

The turian’s thoughts were interrupted when the mail terminal ringed.

Verthyr stared at it for a minute. She had paid all of her bills. She had her groceries for the week and her rent wasn’t due for another three weeks. Her taxes were up to date.

Approaching the terminal slowly, she continued to wonder who could possibly be contacting her. Her parents? They didn’t have her extranet information.

She clicked on the screen.

 

_To: Verthyr Acarius_

_From: <Error: unknown sender> _

 

_Dear Verthyr,_

_I need to see you immediately. I have purchased a Flight 107 in Sirtalines pass for you to Illium, and it leaves tomorrow at noon. Bring enough belongings to fill one bag, no more._

_I will send someone for you at the docks._

_Quincius_

 

Her eyes widened in shock. _Quincius? Her uncle?_

She shook her head. No. _No._ Her uncle Quincius had died in a ship accident. His whole crew had told her so. Her mother had told her so.

This was too much. Her dead uncle was asking her to fly halfway across the galaxy, to the _Terminus Systems_ , just to talk.

It had to be a trick. It had to be.

She quickly mailed him back:

 

_Prove that you’re Quincius._

 

The waiting kept her on edge. She glanced at the clock every ten seconds, watching, waiting, hovering near the terminal, her dinner left forgotten in the microwave.

_Ba-ding._

She clicked it immediately.

 

_Your favorite candy is the cosmotaffy I used to bring you from Palaven._

 

She blinked. Once, twice.

It was her uncle. And he was alive.

 

_I’ll be there._

 

After calling in sick for the next day of work, Verthyr flew into a frenzy of packing and wondering. _Why would my uncle contact me ten years after he died? Why would he let everyone believe he was dead?_ The questions plagued her and she couldn’t answer any of them.

She packed her bag, which was mostly filled with clothes and extra little things from the cabal, sat on the couch, and quickly fell asleep, exhausted.

 

When Verthyr’s alarm went off at nine, she had already been awake for an hour. She’d eaten, triple-checked her bag, and hyper-cleaned.

She grabbed her bag and headed for the shuttle station. Today was going to be a long day.

 

The shuttle dropped her off at the pride and glory of the Citadel: the spaceport.

Traffic from all over the galaxy intertwined here, ships from the edge and heart alike, turian and asari and salarian and volus and human ships all docked in one place. It was a beautiful sight, busy and bustling and never slowing down.

The secretary sat alert and perky, so Verthyr approached her.

“I’m on Flight 107 for Sirtalines, today. It leaves at noon?”

“Name?”

“Acarius.”

A moment passed while the asari clicked around on her screen. A ticket printed.

“Second terminal to your left. Have a nice day!”

Verthyr took the ticket and looked for the terminal the asari had indicated.

 

Security took about an hour, and was only held up because of Verthyr’s questionable history. Finally, they waved her through.

The ship Verthyr was to board was a lovely looking cruiser, and a top-of-the-line, highly expensive model. She happened to know that the Sirtalines cruisers came with a full bar and reclining leather seats. So her uncle was not only alive, but also filthy rich. _What has he been doing for the past ten years?_

“Flight 107 now boarding; that’s Flight 107, now boarding.”

Verthyr showed her ticket to the guard at the door and he waved her through.

She looked at the paper. Seat 171a.

An attendant showed her to her seat and left, leaving Verthyr to stash her bag overhead and relax in the seat.

A human came by a few minutes later and sat down, stashing his bag under the seat.

“Hi, my name’s Dante.” He extended a hand to shake.

Verthyr took it, although she never understood the human custom of shaking hands. It was heavily flawed, one of the drawbacks including the spreading of germs more quickly.

“Verthyr,” she said slowly, waiting for the complaint of ‘all turian names sound the same’ or ‘veronica?’

To her pleasant surprise, he repeated her name perfectly and quickly. She felt slightly ashamed of herself for stereotyping him.

“I’m on my way to Illium to meet my grandmother for her birthday, what about you?”

“I’m just meeting my uncle.”

“You’d love my grandmother, she owns a winery and always makes the best chicken pie!”

Verthyr shook her head.

“What is a chicken? I’ve heard everything tastes like it.”

Dante just blinked for a minute and then launched into a rapid explanation of chickens, none of which she understood. He finally pulled up an image on his omni-tool of the bird.

“And you eat this in… everything?”

“Oh, yeah! It tastes especially good on pizza!”

“I think I’ve had something similar to that…”

The rest of the flight carried on that way, talking about various cultural differences and food-- both agreed that colovian brandy was the best brandy.

“Can you believe some humans used to refuse to eat genetically modified food?”

“What! That’s insane!”

The attendant came by later and offered them drinks; they both ordered glasses of brandy.

“You’re the nicest turian I’ve ever met,” said Dante, an hour later.

“And you’re actually pretty sensitive for a human.”

Both of them sat silently for a minute, pondering the flaws of their own race.

Dante swirled his mostly empty brandy glass.

“There was one time when I was little… I lived on Horizon with my moms. And there was this turian kid who would sometimes visit, cause his human parents had adopted him, right? And he was so mean to me. He’d kick me, and say my hair was stupid, and just be nasty. And I hated turians for a long time after that. I’d go out of my way to be spiteful and rude, just so that they’d know what it felt like. And then, one day, I was walking around on the Citadel, and I saw this human kid beating up a turian girl.

“I ran over there and yelled at him to stop, but the kid wouldn’t listen. ‘This is for my grandpa, you beaky scum!’ he yelled, and this little girl was just crying. And I felt awful. I chased the boy off and took the girl to find her father, who was worried sick. And I realized something; turians are just like humans. There are some mean ones, and some nice ones, and you can’t let a part represent the whole.”

Verthyr was silent. How was she supposed to respond?

“All passengers must be seated: approaching docking bay in 5.”

“Anyway, thanks for listening to me.” Dante smiled, a little sadly, and didn’t say another word.

 

A human man was standing at the Illium spaceport, projecting ‘ACARIUS’ from his omni-tool. Verthyr spotted him immediately and followed him to the shuttle station.

When they were alone, the man spoke in a thick accent.

“I work for your uncle, yes? He sent me to retrieve you. He told me to tell you that he will explain everything.”

“Why is he contacting me now?” she blurted out. Before she could continue, the man shook his head.

“I do not know. I am only butler.”

The shuttle ride was entirely silent after that.

 

The man, whose name she discovered was Aleksis, escorted her to an exquisite building with floor-to-ceiling windows, plush carpets, and bustling amounts of people. It was quite jarring compared to her old lodgings on the Citadel.

They took an elevator to the top floor. The doors opened into a short hallway with a single door at the end, looking quite ominous.

To make the nervousness in Verthyr’s stomach even worse, Aleksis announced “I cannot take you to him. I must go back downstairs. You go through door, see your uncle.”

Verthyr stepped tentatively out of the elevator, and Aleksis closed the door behind her.

General Quincius Acarius was behind the hallway door.

She took a deep breath and opened the door.

 

The office was huge, with roughly hewn teak floors, shag white rugs placed strategically, and couches. So many couches. Verthyr counted at least 7.

A large desk sat in front of the window with a golden nameplate reading ‘Acarius.’ A turian sat behind the desk, looking weathered and very focused.

“Verthyr! It’s been too long,” Quincius stood, outstretching his arms. Verthyr dropped her bag and ran to him, hugging him tightly.

“I understand you’re excited to see me; trust me, I’m excited too.” He said, releasing her. Quincius sat down again, gesturing to the plush stool in front of the desk. Verthyr sat on it.

“We must immediately address the elephant in the room. I contacted you because I learned something gravely important and there was only one person in the world I could trust with this information.”

Verthyr’s light mood melted away at Quincius’ face. He looked frightened. Fright was a face rarely seen on a turian.

“Do you remember Shepard, hero of the Citadel, first human spectre, savior of the galaxy, blah, blah, blah?”

“Yes.”

“She was right; the Reapers are coming.”

The world stopped spinning. There was no breath, no sound, no movement, no singular thing Verthyr could register, save for her own heartbeat.

_The Reapers were coming._

Very slowly, the world continued to spin.

“You expect me to believe my dead uncle when he tells me that magical machines are coming to end civilization?”

“If you don’t believe me, believe Shepard. If she believed in them enough to blow up the Alpha Relay, don’t you at least think it’s worth considering?”

Quincius was met with silence. It was just too much to process for Verthyr.

“I knew I could trust you because I received your military reports; you’re strong, capable, and adept. I believe you’re the only person for the job I have to offer you.”

“A...job offer?”

“We can discuss it more tomorrow. You need food, and a good night’s rest. I’ll have Aleksis take you to your suite.”

“Suite?”

“Of course.” Quincius grinned. “You don’t think I’d let my own niece sleep in a two-star hotel, do you?”

 

The suite was gorgeous.

Vaulted ceilings arched up to at least twenty feet and the same rough-cut wood from Quincius’ office returned. There was a double oven in the kitchen, a king-sized plush bed squishy enough for a turian, and soft candlelight lighting up the apartment as the sun set in the sparkling floor-to-ceiling windows.

It was too much.

Verthyr crashed into the bed and stared at the ceiling for hours, thinking of nothing and feeling nothing.

If she felt anything or thought anything, she would crash.

It was like piloting a shuttle through an asteroid belt. One slip of the thumb, one twitch, and everything failed.

She finally fell asleep, lulled by her own sheer mental exhaustion and ambient music playing from somewhere in the ceiling, surrounded by luxury but unable to appreciate any of it.

 

Aleksis returned for Verthyr in the morning with a silky gown befitting a queen, and he escorted her back to Quincius’ office. Her uncle looked significantly more relaxed today.

“Right… so the Reapers are coming to destroy us all… and you have a job offer for me.”

“Yes. That about sums it up.”

Verthyr sat silently for a minute before Quincius cleared his throat.

“I would like to answer any questions you have before telling you about this job. You may ask freely and I will hold nothing back.”

The younger turian stared for a minute, thinking.

“How did you get all of this money?”

“I am an agent of the Shadow Broker, a buyer and seller of information. I am also the CEO of a large company, although most of the work is delegated to my secretary, Nyrni. She’s wonderful at it.”

“Who else knows you’re alive?”

“Well, hopefully most of my employees do,” he chuckled. Tears welled in Verthyr’s eyes before she shouted, “Why did you let _me_ believe you were dead, then? No contact! No friendly message of ‘ _hey i just wanted to tell you I’m doing fine and living in the lap of luxury!’_ ”

Quincius laced his fingers together and sighed deeply.

“The Shadow Broker believed it best if I stayed dead, you see. Much easier to gain information that way. I could watch and listen and nobody would think it was I, General Acarius.”

“Bullshit. You were scared.”

Her uncle hung his head.

“Yes. I was.”

They were both quiet for a minute or two.

“What’s this job offer?”

Quincius placed a datapad on the desk and met Verthyr’s eyes.

“I need a smuggler. Someone to get goods and cargo to and from places covertly. You’ll be running supply lines for people who believe the Reapers are coming and want to be prepared, instead of covering it up like the Council politicians.”

“So, I’ll be helping the war effort… by smuggling.”

“Yes. I also have dossiers for you, to build a team. You can’t fly a cruiser yourself, you know.”

Verthyr sighed. What choice did she have? It was either accept her uncle’s offer, or go back home to squeaky faucets, dingy mail terminals, and blown fuses.

“All right. Where do I go first?”

“Omega. There’s a ship called the TC Teiko docked in Bay F, and a batarian named Khorok has a pilot for you. I will forward you the details for your first run.”


End file.
